Friday marks five years since the start of the Caldor Fire, which started in a steep canyon before tearing across El Dorado, Amador and Alpine counties.
The fire scorched nearly 222,000 acres, from one side of the Sierra Nevada to the other, and took 69 days to contain.
Almost all of Grizzly Flats was destroyed in about 15 minutes. Four hundred of the 600 homes were burned down. Many of the people in the community are still living in campers and trailers.
Former President Biden flew over Grizzly Flats in 2021 and saw the destruction left behind. He met with Gov. Gavin Newsom and received a briefing on the fire as it still burned. During his visit, he declared a major disaster in El Dorado County and promised help.
Newsom requested help from FEMA, which is approved or denied by the president, but it was rejected. At the time, FEMA said the impact of the fire was "not of such severity and magnitude to warrant individual assistance."
Another request for individual assistance from FEMA was sent in when President Trump took office for his second term, but that was also denied.
That money was important because a lot of people did not have fire insurance for several different reasons, much of the community is low- to middle-income or on a fixed income, and it's expensive to build new construction in California.
Title 25 offers help rebuilding
But now there's a plan, called Title 25, to get victims back into an actual house. It essentially skirts some of the building regulations, like solar and sprinklers, by building homes with smaller square footage.
"We worked with a local architect," said Karen Garner, the director of planning and building in El Dorado County, "who was kind enough to donate his time to create a small 750 square foot, two-bedroom, one-bath house set of plans and now anybody can use those for free." The community in Grizzly Flats was planning on helping one another build their homes using those plans. But Garner knew that would take a long time.
So, she reached out to her contacts in the building industry, who put her in touch with a nonprofit called HomeAid Sacramento.
They then reached out to builders they work with, who are now building many of these Title 25 homes by donating much of the materials and labor.Pat Olsen is watching her new Grizzly Flats home being built from the foundation up and is just now believing what she is seeing."I guess every day when I come out here and look at this, I'm asking, is this really going to be our house?" Olsen said. Five years after the Caldor Fire burned down her home, as wildlife slowly returns to the mountain, she has been living in a trailer. "It's been hard," she said. "It's been really hard." Olsen is now one of a small group of Caldor Fire survivors in Grizzly Flats that is using the fast-tracked state housing program called Title 25 to rebuild. Several nonprofits are now donating materials and labor to help fund the money gap, leaving some in Grizzly Flats feeling forgotten. "A lot of these people just didn't have enough time to get out, you know, barely enough time," El Dorado County supervisor George Turnboo said. Turnboo has worked to bring life back to Grizzly Flats. He personally requested help from the federal government for FEMA individual assistance, but was denied. "So if I'm you and I've sent letters to the White House, to the Senate, to the Congress members and I haven't received anything back," Turnboo said. "I've lost hope. And these people have lost hope and they don't even trust our own government. It's pretty sad." The waiting game for federal help has now been replaced with gratitude, five years after the Caldor Fire.
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